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Earned my "Stripes"


Jeff R

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Hey all, hope all is good in the new year. Haven't been around much lately, as work has been extremely busy. Have been averaging 84 hrs/ week since we got back from the Quinte G2G. Well enough of the boring stuff. Decided to book some time off, and after much internet perusing, got my g/f a trip to Vegas for Christmas. I have never been, and after doing some reading up on Lake Mead, it was pretty much a done deal. :Gonefishing: .....Fortunately, the weather stayed nice for the trip. and was lucky enough to have a sunny 57 degree day to do some striped bass fishing. Apparantly it is a slow time of year down there, so it wasn't to hard locating a boat.....The lake scenery was beautiful, considering the lack of vegetation, and the water was crystal clear blue.

 

 

 

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The water temp was 52 and we were fishing in 100-120 FOW....You have to catch your own bait, as you can't buy it for some reason..I was told that during the late spring and through summer months, you throw out your casting net, and pull out enough shad to last 2 days. We however, threw for 1/2 hr, and managed 9 shad. It didn't help that there was stripe tourney going on..

 

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We finally got to the first spot about 7:15, dropped anchor and set up...We were using L rods, with 6 lb test, 3/8 oz weight about 18" above the shad. Just before 7:30 I managaed my first stripe, almost 2 lbs, good fight from 90 ft down

 

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Managed a few more about the same size, before the anchor came loose, and we headed off to a new spot...Didn't take very long to get into some more action

 

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this one hit on the way down at about 60-70', had to hold him a little closer to the camera, came in at about 1 1/2#

 

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this was my big one of the day and a PB I guess, 3#1oz...

 

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We managed some smaller ones after that and headed in about 1:30.. We were going to try and hit some trophy size but a 35 mph wind came up on us from the south. With 30 miles to blow along, it didn't take long to get some big rollers happening.....No complaints though, managed to boat 18/23 fish, with only 2 ( that we saw) lost to bladder burst...

 

As a couple of points of interest, 10 yrs ago Lake Mead held 28 acrefoot of water ( I had never of such a measurement. 1 acrefoot equals approx 325,800 gallons) just over 9 million gallons. While it has lost 12 acrefoot, many spots are still over 300' deep. It is also home to 11? different species of fish. This bank is somewhere in the 80-90' high range with a channel marker on top

 

 

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Was hoping to get out ice fishing before I headed down there. But those plans didn't work out so well...Maybe soon

 

Jeff

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Great fishing trip/report jeff !!!!.. :w00t: .very nice scenery down there,and nice pics of those strippers too...well you had a busy day catching all those fish, do they keep them down there are they good to eat???just wondering it sure looks like that lake levels chang pretty drastically too,it almost looks like its at a very low level ????...glad to hear from you as well,i havnt heard from you since our quinte G2G,well enjoy your tripand talk to you soon bud !!!! cheers :thumbsup_anim::Gonefishing:

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Outdoorguy and GCD......if you go in the summer, I was told that the action is so good that the water actually appears to be bubbling with all the activity.. and as a forewarning, the CO's are out in full force on the weekends. We were visited twice on the water, and another waiting at the launch...

 

Yes Shawn, they do keep them. I was told they are great eating. Once they hit about the 4-5 pound mark, then the flesh along the lateral line has to be removed, or else they get a strong fish taste to them...There quotas are very liberal there as well. They have increased the limits after there stocking program was super succesful. It is figured that just over 60% took and spawned. So now you are allowed 10? over 20" and unlimited under 20. Apparently, there are not enough people fishing to keep the numbers down, so they have increased the limits.

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Lake Meade is the principle source of water for Vegas and other areas. At the rate of depletion the water intakes will be above the surface in 3 years.

They have had to scramble for something in the excess of 1 billion dollars to make a new intake in the next few years. OUCH!!

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